Always Mobile
by Goren R O
Summary: Robert Goren thinks about his father. It makes his head hurt.
1. Chapter 1

Subject: Goren, R.O  
Male, 48, b. NYC.  
ref: NYPD, MCS  
Assessment - (personal notes only) professional supervision  
Notes refer Sess. #

These notes are part of an annotated transcript derived from tape recordings of our xxx session together.

NOTE: I'm aware that we have have been skirting around a considerable number of issues concerning Goren's mother and older brother in the last few weeks. I'm looking for a way to broach this with him. He has notes from his time in Narcotics regarding his problem with authority figures. I'd like to know more about what is motivating him at this point, so I ask him:

- What can you tell me about your relationship with your father, Detective Goren?

Goren looks at me in astonishment. It's as though he thought that psychologists didn't _really_ ask those kind of questions - that they were the preserve of day-time television and soap operas. I smile encouragingly at him. He scratches absently at the back of his neck for a moment before responding. I recognise that as a sign of discomfort. He says:

- When I start thinking about my dad I feel like someone is pouring hot tar in my ears, or I'm getting a head-cold, or something. So I try not to think about him much, as everything in my head slows down and I hate that feeling.

- That's a very honest answer. Is it only thoughts of your father that do that to you?

- Only in-depth consideration of him. I can think on a simplistic level about him without it being a problem.

- I wonder what it was about him that causes this?

- Everything.

- Expand on that, please.

Goren rubs his palm all over his face repeatedly, as though trying to rub life into his features. He is heavily bearded this week, though I suspect this may be as the result of neglect as opposed to a deliberate tonsorial statement. His voice is very quiet.

- My mother was over-fond of telling me that my father was a shit. But ... the way she said it, I used to wonder if it was a description of him, or a reflection on me. It doesn't matter who my father was. What matters is who I REMEMBER him as being.

I pick up on his terminlogy and challenge him on it.

- You use an interesting turn of phrase, Detective. I don't think I fully understand you. It sounds almost as though you are saying you do not know who your father was.

Goren's face becomes completely still. I hold his gaze, but as the moments wear on, find it increasingly difficult to do so. After an appreciable pause I clear my throat and try a different question.

- So, how _do_ you remember your father, then?

Goren stands up and moves slowly over to the window, where a mobile of brightly painted wooden fishes, a favourite of some of my younger subjects, hangs. Sure enough, he starts to fiddle with it, untangling it. The activity does not seem to impact on his speech pattern or, presumably, his underlying thought processes in any way. It is unconscious. He can't help it. He is barely aware of what he is doing.

I tampered deliberately with the mobile ten minutes before he arrived, getting it all tangled up. Perhaps he guesses I have done that, and knows I am testing him, but has decided that he doesn't care. Restoration of the mobile to its correct function seems more important.

This is typical of the man.

He says:

- My dad was a man of what my mom euphemistically called 'appetites'. He was a weak man, easily influenced. He had a classic addictive personality

- That's a very old-fashioned expression, Detective. You surprise me.

- Well, OK. Whatever. He was a mixture of 'anti-social' and 'self-punitive', then. He abused himself to help him manage his emotions, especially after mom got sick. Something like 73% of men with sick or disabled wives, leave them. Alcohol and gambling were his ways of leaving. Until he finally did ... leave. He should've had "Everything In Moderation" carved on his grave stone, but with the word "Everything" underlined in red. That was his interpretation of the phrase. He spent most of his adult life on a mission to try out just about every ... thing.

- How did he die?

- Cancer. Bowel. It moved into his liver in the end. What was left of his liver.

Goren comes and sits down again. There is another of those long drawn-out pauses where all I can hear on the digital recorder is Goren's breathing and the sounds of his clothing rubbing as he shifts around trying to get comfortable. After at least 30 seconds he speaks again.

- My rational mind knows that I didn't cause his death, but sometimes I wonder. I might have ... you know, hastened his passing. He got sick when I was still working in Narcotics. We argued badly, a week before he finally passed.

- What happened?

- The pain of it must have been driving him out of his gourd, because he said something to me, something like, "Of all the many things I've achieved in my life son, you being in the NYPD is the one I am most proud of." He looked me right in the eye when he said it, without a trace of irony. Not a hint.

Goren's expression is one of old, half-healed pain, and continued disbelief. He seems to be right back there with his father, in the hospital room. I no longer exist for Goren at this point in the proceedings.

- Looking back on it all, you know - a _decade_ on, I guess he was trying in his half-assed way to make up for the years of bad feeling between us, to try and smooth out the dents in his conscience. He was trying to make amends, trying to square up with me. Maybe.

Another long pause.

- I was younger. Hot-headed ... so I just went crazy. I think I'd been on stake-out for three nights, I'd hardly slept or eaten, and there was this, this _vile husk_ of a man lying on the oncology ward at the Bronx-Lebanon trying to claw up the credit for everything I had managed to achieve in my life. My life. Can we put the AC on, please?

I suspect that, rather than being physically uncomfortable, Goren interrupts himself like this in order to gain a little respite from the intensity of his feelings. The AC hums and whistles a bit and I can hear the newly-freed fish mobile moving in the slight breeze.

- What happened when you lost your temper?

- Oh, I told him a few home truths about me, about him, about Frank, and about Mom. He looked pretty stunned. He never expected me to lay it all at his door while he was on his death bed, I s'pose. It's like I'm the only one who actually understood what is going on for ALL the different members of my family. Everyone else is in their own little circle of lies and half-truths.

- That sounds ... hard work for you. A burden. Is that right?

- I think so, yeah. Maybe that's why I really let rip on my dad. And then, he died. He was dead in a week.

- And you believe that the sudden stark details of his life and his family's is what left him too weak to fight the illness?

- Yeah. I can't shake that feeling.

- Even though there's no real evidence that that is what happened?

- It was the same for my mom. She and I had -

He stop; swallows, not without difficulty.

- Take your time, Detective Goren. These are powerful topics. Was there an argument with your mother? Before she died?

But, he's gone. I've lost him. He clams up and just looks at me, his face impassive again. I resist the urge to sigh in frustration. It must be difficult for him - he is, after all, used to being the one who asks the questions.

On the recording, all I can hear, until I decide to end the session prematurely, is the fish mobile clattering gently in the breeze from the air conditioner. Goren may have freed up its tangled strands and allowed it to function properly again, but if only he could do the same for himself.

What he has told me about his family life suggests that he did not grow up in a supportive, nurturing environment where the sharing of such intimacies was encouraged. It's very hard for Goren to confide in others in matters concerning his personal feelings.

He simply never developed the knack.


	2. Chapter 2

**Prompt 21.6 - Perceive.**

Subject: Goren, R.O  
Male, 48, b. NYC.  
ref: NYPD, MCS  
Assessment - (personal notes only) professional supervision.  
Notes refer Sess. #

Note to self: I'm trying to get Goren to talk a little more about his early life experiences. It is my hope that he will then gain some insight into the events and feelings that founded him.

We continue our conversation - although I hesitate to call it that, really - about fathers. Something Goren said in his last session has me intrigued. He is not a man to make unwitting slips of the tongue, or to say anything off hand. Not without careful consideration. Not here, with me, in this office, with so much riding on what he says. He has far too much at stake for that.

As previously observed, Robert Goren can carefully consider what he wants to say in a fraction of the time it would take another man to put half a coherent sentence together.

I look back in my notes, and the transcript of our conversation. He said:

_"It doesn't matter who my father was. What matters is who I REMEMBER him as being."_

At the time, I wasn't able to get him to elucidate on this. But I feel it is significant.

I try again. I reintroduce the subject of his father on the pretence of recapping what we talked about the last time, and then explain that there was something in my notes I didn't fully understand. I say:

- So ... as far as you are concerned, you father could have been Elvis Aaron Presley or Neil Armstrong or John, Paul George and Ringo, but that would be irrelevant to you because your memories are what makes that man your father. Was I hearing you right?

- That's it, yes.

- And you don't recall there being other men in your sphere of influence when you were a little boy?

- I have no memory of ... other men. No. (Note: I am certain he hesitated before he said that. Certain. It is hard to catch on the tape, but it's there.) And certainly not any of those men you mention there, either.

He decorates that second part of the sentence with a smile. But why do I feel he is throwing me a line? Trying to drag me off course?

I ask:

- How did you perceive your father, then? How does he look now, in your mind's eye?

- Uh - a weak man, easily influenced; addictive, immature. A womaniser, too.

- That list sounds rather too well rehearsed, Detective. I was hoping for something a little more ... visceral.

He looks at me, his face hard to read, but I sense a growing feeling of irritation coming up from him. Something in the awkward set of his shoulders, and the pallid color of his knuckles. I realise that although he is working overtime to try and disguise it, he is in fact very, very tense. This is not conducive.

- I'm sorry Doctor. I'm not comfortable with this.

- I can see that, Detective. Do you not believe that our talking together can help you?

- No. I don't. With respect ... I'm only here because I have to be. If it'd help persuade the Chief of D's to reinstate me, I'd willingly crawl naked through the Fifth Avenue sewers.

With any other paying client I would probably have suspended sessions for a while at this point, realising the futility of trying to help someone who is not yet in a place where they are ready to be helped. I have no such luxury with Robert Goren. His superior officers have informed me that he is to continue seeing me every week to ten days for the foreseeable future. I have questioned this, to no avail. I am considering a formal complaint. I tell Goren none of this. I ask:

- What is it you mistrust so in these sessions? You must be familiar with the techniques I'm using - they're so similar to those you use yourself to facilitate catharsis in your suspects. I know for a fact that you're very good at getting people to let go of their defensive mechanisms. And how many times would you say that you have seen people improved by their confessions?

- Confessions ...

Goren laughs, lightly, nervously, as though he finds my wording very ironic.

- Look. Doctor, I bent some departmental rules, OK? I'm not ... I'm not a criminal. I've done nothing wrong. I feel no shame or guilt. I'm not 'burdened' by my feelings.

- Until now.

- Excuse me?

I fumble through my notes.

- In a previous session you told me you felt ashamed of your situation, and that was what was preventing you from contacting your partner.

- No, I didn't mean -

- and that furthermore, you were aware that you had compromised Eames's professional standing by making her complicit in your deception when you went unauthorised into Tates, placing yourself in grave danger -

- What are you talking about?

I pause. I must not lose him now.

- Detective, you said yourself that you might have died in there had it not been for your partner's actions. She was the only person you could rely upon. Even your own brother failed to make a single phone call that might have alleviated your suffering a little earlier. You felt you had to go into Tates, unbidden, because your superior officer had let you down so badly. Just as your own father had let you down. I think there is a link here.

Goren narrows his eyes and says nothing. I take a breath, press on.

- You were how old, when he left permanently? Remind me?

- I think I was about eleven.

- Do you remember how that felt?

- Not exactly, no. No.

Prompted by his reticence and his body language, I decide to try something a little different. I stand up and motion for him to follow me to the back section of my office, away from the windows. The decor here is more subdued. No distractions. I gesture towards the easy chair - it is the kind that can tip back slightly. Far more comfortable than the over-stuffed upright armchair he is used to.

He now looks decidedly uneasy.

- Sit down please, Detective.

Once he is 'settled' (hardly the right word) I talk him through the standard Barach exercises for breathing and individual muscle attention. He struggles rather obviously, resisting the urge to give in to my voice and to simply relax. I lean in close to him.

- Do you trust me, Bobby?

It is the first (and only) time I ever use his given name.

- Yes. I trust you.

- Do as I am telling you, then. Concentrate on the sound of your breathing. Listen as the air goes in and out of your chest. Listen to how it sounds. Feel your diaphragm and your chest muscles working together. Slow ... it ... down, slow it all down. No, keep your eyes closed. Breathe. Let yourself go back there, to when you were ten years old.

He eventually gives in. His body seems to shrink slightly in the chair as the tension leaves one large muscle set after another. I sit patiently and wait for him to catch up with his memories. They are running very fast now, in full flood. I am a grizzly bear on the side of the river, looking for a salmon of memory to jump, so I can swat it out of the air and devour it.

- Think about being ten years old. Just ten. Think about your bedroom, your toys. Your clothes, your shoes, how long your hair was. Think about how your father is ... gone, now. How are you feeling?

- Angry. I'm mad. Real mad.

He opens his eyes and regards me solemnly. He could still be a little boy, or a fifty year old man, for a moment it's impossible to tell. But then he coughs lightly and sits forward. I'm less than satisfied, but I'm getting used to that with this subject.

- You felt angry with your father?

- Yes. I still do. No surprise there, really.

Goren is right. He appears to be in touch with his feelings about his father's abandonment, rather than suppressing them, as I had previously thought. So I ask him,

- How does that impact on your work?

Goren looks impatient.

- It's not that my feelings about my father cloud my judgement. My feelings about my father INFORM my judgement, see? I know what that feels like and I can predict how it might affect someone else. I can use that knowledge to play suspects, to suggest things to them, to encourage them to explore their own feelings -

- And thereby trick them into divulging the truth, is that it?

- I see you recognise one of your own techniques when you see it, Doctor.

I end the session there. He is grateful for that and frankly so am I. Goren's case has become important to me. He is different from my usual bread-and-butter cases; bored rich women with dependency problems, police officers with PTSD and other mental problems, especially after a legal fatality; depressed teenagers and stressed-out executives. Goren is considerably more difficult. But very interesting.

Perhaps I should not admit to that.


End file.
